To have joy, one must
rejoice in God. Joy is not passive. Joy is the emotion of faith. If we want to
experience joy one must rejoice in God – putting faith in His person and
goodness.
To meditate/pray upon
John 17:13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while
I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy
within them.”
Philippians 4:4-5 ‘Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again:
Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.’
We often think of joy as an inner sensation that comes to us when good
and enjoyable things happen to us.
But joy is also to ‘delight in’ something. The word ‘Joy’ (χαρά - chara) and ‘rejoice’ (χαίρω – chairō) are related – to
rejoice is to take joy in something. What do we rejoice in? The Lord, who He
is, His love, the grace of the gospel.
We may not always feel happy but we can always delight in Christ, His
grace, His promises, His love… As we do so the sensation of joy will follow.
Even if it takes time to feel joy, it is always right to rejoice in God and the
good in our lives.
It’s vital when we talk about having joy that we don’t seek to obtain it
directly. What I mean is, joy is not the goal, we don’t make joy an idol! Joy
is a by-product of faith and delighting in God. We don’t love God to obtain
joy, that is a very ugly motive! We love God because He is lovely and joy is
the fruit.
0 comments:
Post a Comment